Kindred

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed someone who looked like me to show me the way. I was ignorant and arrogant and persistent and the writing left me no choice at all

Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense.

I did my best for Alice, hurt her as little as possible, got her clean and bandaged the worst of her injuries—the dog bites.

And I began to realize why Kevin and I had fitted so easily into this time. We weren’t really in. We were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors. While we waited to go home, we humored the people around us by pretending to be like them. But we were poor actors. We never really got into our roles. We never forgot that we were acting.

“Why aren’t you eating?” he asked when he stopped for breath. The warehouse was in a newly built industrial section of Compton, far enough from coffee shops and hot dog stands to discourage most of us from going out to eat. Some people brought their lunches. Others bought them from the catering truck. I had done neither. All I was having was a cup of the free dishwater coffee available to all the warehouse workers.

“I’m on a diet,” I said.

He stared at me for a moment, then got up, motioned me up. “Come on.”

“Where?”

“To the truck if it’s still there.”

“Wait a minute, you don’t have to …”

“Listen, I’ve been on that kind of diet.”

“I’m all right,” I lied, embarrassed. “I don’t want anything.”